Posted on 04/25/2003 1:07:08 AM PDT by sarcasm
BEIJING (Reuters) - The Philippines reported its first deaths from SARS on Thursday and authorities in Taiwan quarantined over 1,000 doctors, nurses and patients in a hospital to halt the spread of the deadly flu-like disease.
A World Health Organization official said SARS could become a horrifying epidemic if it spread in China's provinces or in nations like India and Bangladesh, where people live cheek-by-jowl and medical facilities are poor.
``There will be various countries in the world where we would be really concerned because we don't think they have the capacity to stem the tide once it is introduced,'' WHO official Wolfgang Preiser told reporters in Shanghai.
``It may have happened already, we don't know.''
SARS, a respiratory infection for which there is no known cure and which has a mortality rate of about six percent, has killed over 265 people and infected about 4,600 in 25 nations.
It has caused widespread alarm in mainland China, which has reported 110 deaths, and in Hong Kong, where 109 have died.
The Philippines reported its first two deaths from the virus, joining China, Hong Kong, Singapore, Canada, Vietnam, Malaysia and Thailand to have SARS fatalities.
Health Secretary Manuel Dayrit said the Philippine dead were a nursing assistant visiting home from Toronto and her father.
The disease is spread by droplets from sneezing and coughing, but it may also be transmitted by touching contaminated objects such as elevator buttons.
Taiwan authorities sealed the Taipei Municipal Ho Ping Hospital on Thursday after more than 25 suspected SARS cases were discovered and about 1,000 doctors, nurses, patients and visitors will have to stay there for up to two weeks. Many were furious.
WHY ME?
``I am not sick. Why should I be quarantined?'' a nurse in an apple green uniform shouted at reporters.
Some patients pasted signs and raised placards to the windows of the downtown hospital in protest.
``Quarantining healthy people is against the law. Do not treat us like birds with bird flu or pigs with the foot-and-mouth disease,'' wrote one patient.
Taiwan has strong business and ethnic ties with China and Hong Kong, but has reported only 41 probable cases of SARS with strict measures at airports and liberal use of quarantine orders.
Senior Canadian officials vociferously challenged a travel warning from WHO to avoid Toronto, as well as Hong Kong, Beijing and China's Guangdong and Shanxi provinces, as the city won support from the U.S. Centers for Disease Control (CDC) in Atlanta for its handling of the outbreak.
The agency said the risk of contracting SARS was no greater in Canada than in any other nation with cases of the disease. It recommended precautions such as staying away from hospitals.
In the United States, the virus was found in six more patients, bringing the U.S. total to 245 ``suspected'' cases, but only 39 were probable cases, meaning they had pneumonia as well as fever and cough or other symptoms, CDC head Dr. Julie Gerberding said. All but two had traveled to Asia or Toronto, suggesting, the CDC said, that it was not spreading freely.
The WHO said Vietnam, which had 63 cases and five deaths, had managed to control SARS through aggressive measures. A number of countries in Europe and elsewhere that had also reported outbreaks had managed to stop the spread.
ECONOMICS
But the economic impact of SARS appears to be spreading faster than the virus, threatening to transform from a short-term hit on Asian demand to a shock that could disrupt global production and trade networks.
``Investors are no longer focusing on countries with high counts of infections and deaths,'' said Philip Wee, treasury markets strategist at DBS in Singapore.
``Attention is starting to shift to economic fallout on countries that are dependent on affected countries for growth.''
So far the impact has been largely on spending by Asian consumers -- keeping people out of shops and entertainment venues and curtailing travel and holiday plans -- but quarantine measures and fears of the disease spreading could hit production.
Firms have restricted travel to Asia, and companies warned the outbreak could affect earnings and Asian-based manufacturing.
Commodity traders are worried that if SARS disrupted trade and slowed growth it would weaken Chinese demand for industrial imports, such as metals and rubber. Imports such as cotton and grains were also at risk as people avoid shops and restaurants.
The Paris-based Organization for Economic Cooperation and Development said SARS' economic impact could be significant, while the World Trade Organization warned on Wednesday that global commerce would be shaken if trading giant China was severely hurt by the crisis.
The World Bank said East Asian economies should be able to weather SARS, although it warned of a severe short-term effect.
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